Chapter 53: Public Reputation

Chapter 53: Chapter 53: Public Reputation

I

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 8 January 1914

Zeynep laid a folded commercial gazette upon the breakfast table and pointed to a column near the bottom of the second page.

The House of Hassan, a Young Merchant, and the Honest Ream, ran the heading, and the article beneath it praised the price boards, the Friday counts, and the youth of the man who had begun them.

Ayaan read it twice and did not smile.

"It names me four times," he said. "It names you and Elias and Hasan not once."

"The writer has not met them, and he has met you." Zeynep folded the paper. "I would not be troubled, for praise costs us nothing."

"Praise costs a great deal when it is read by the wrong man." Ayaan set the gazette aside. "A name that is known is a name that can be watched."

Mustafa, who had come to share the morning bread, listened with his hands folded.

"A good name is borrowed from those who trust you, my son, and every loan must be repaid," he said. "Be glad that it was lent, and keep your accounts as before."

II

Constantinople, Galata — 22 January 1914

Hac? Arif received them in the hall of the stationers’ guild, where a long table had been laid for forty members.

"The guild wishes to honour the House at a dinner next month," he said. "There will be a toast, and I have been asked to give it to you."

"I thank the guild, but I cannot accept it for myself, Hac? Efendi," said Ayaan. "The shelves were made by Yakup and Selim, the rules were written by Elias Benveniste, and the count is kept by clerks in five towns."

Hac? Arif lifted his brows.

"You refuse a toast that most merchants would seek for ten years?" he asked.

"I ask only that the toast be given to the clerks, and that their names be read aloud." Ayaan paused. "If the guild wishes to give the House a certificate, let it be for the rules of the warehouse, so that other members may copy them."

Agop Kalfayan, who sat at the far end, laughed quietly into his beard.

"The boy has declined a dinner in order to give it to his clerks," he said. "I have lived more than seventy years in Galata and have not seen it done."

Hac? Arif considered the proposal for a moment and then nodded.

"It shall be done as you ask, and the names shall be read in full," he said.

III

Constantinople, Süleymaniye — 29 January 1914

Mustafa walked slowly beside Ayaan along the terrace, and the winter wind carried the sound of the afternoon call to prayer across the Golden Horn.

"You declined the guild’s toast, and I am told that Hac? Arif was astonished," he said.

"I did not wish to be thanked for work that others had done," said Ayaan.

"That is the right reason, but it is not the whole of the matter." Mustafa stopped by the low wall. "A man who refuses honour with too much care may be thought proud of his humility, and the guild will watch for it."

Ayaan considered this for a moment.

"Then what should I do, Father?"

"Accept the certificate, and thank those who give it in plain words." Mustafa touched his arm. "Allah gives a man a good name without asking him to carry it in a procession, but He does not ask him to refuse it in the street either."

IV

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 10 February 1914

Cevdet came to the warehouse office with a printed sheet that he held by its corner.

"A new gazette appeared in Galata on Saturday, and it is sold at the coffee houses for half a kuru?," he said. "Read the third paragraph."

Zeynep took the sheet and read it aloud.

The so-called Compact of Merchants gambles with the deposits of honest traders, and its sheds are kept by boys who cannot read a French invoice. It is said that the fund holds less than it claims.

Elias stood very still at the door.

"It is not true, Han?m," he said. "I counted the fund myself on Friday, and it holds three thousand and sixty liras."

"I know it is not true, Elias, and so does the man who wrote it." Zeynep laid the sheet upon the desk. "Cevdet Efendi, who paid for the printing?"

"A clerk of the Berlin house delivered the copy to the printer, and the money came through a broker of Pera." Cevdet leaned on his stick. "I tell you this because I think you will wish to answer, and I would counsel you to be careful how."

V

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 14 February 1914

The question occupied the table for two evenings.

Elias proposed a letter to the gazette, with the fund statement attached, and Zeynep proposed a notice in all the commercial papers of the city.

"A rebuttal will be read by those who already trust us," said Ayaan. "Those who doubt us will read it as the answer of a man who is afraid."

"Then what would you do?" asked Zeynep.

"I would show them the stock and the strong room with their own eyes, and I would not print a single word against the author." He drew a sheet toward him. "A name is not defended by shouting, but by being found the same when it is examined."

Cevdet, who had come to hear the decision, nodded once.

"It is the only answer that the Berlin house cannot answer in turn," he said. "A merchant who invites inspection has removed the ground beneath the rumour."

Zeynep wrote the notice that night in her firm hand.

The House of Hassan and the Compact of Merchants will open the Rüstem Pa?a warehouse on Saturday, 7 March, from nine in the morning until four in the afternoon. Any merchant, clerk, banker, or journalist may count the stock and the fund, and a guild witness will be present throughout.

VI

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 24 February 1914

Elias gathered the clerks in the warehouse office and read them the order of the open day from a single sheet.

"Every shelf shall be counted by two men, and every count shall be signed," he said. "No clerk shall answer a question that he cannot answer fully, and none shall say that he does not know without adding that he will find out."

Yakup and Selim swept the loading yard and scrubbed the iron doors of the strong room, and they argued gently about the angle at which the slatted shelves should face the light.

"The visitors will look at the shelves first," said Selim.

"Then they shall see the shelves as they are on every day of the year," said Zeynep from the door. "I will not have the warehouse dressed for a Saturday."

Elias nodded and underlined the sentence on his sheet.

Mehmed was carried in by his nurse to see the preparations, and he pointed at the price board with a small, firm finger.

"It is the same," he said.

"Yes, it is the same," said Ayaan. "That is the whole of our rule."

VII

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 7 March 1914

By ten o’clock the loading yard was crowded with merchants in their winter coats.

Monsieur Barrault of the Ottoman Bank came on foot, and Vlastos of Pera stood near the gate with his hands behind his back and an expression of careful neutrality.

Hac? Arif stood beside the strong room and read the fund statement aloud to the visitors, line by line, while Elias held the ledger open before him.

"Three thousand and sixty liras, held in three banks and the strong room, and one hundred and forty liras lent to members against stock," he read. "Let any man who doubts it come and count."

Six merchants went in and counted, and they came out with their sleeves dusty and their faces satisfied.

Barrault counted the coin in the strong room himself and said nothing until he had finished.

"The figure is exact to the last piaster," he told Hac? Arif, and he signed the sheet beneath the guild witness.

At noon a young reporter in a worn black coat approached Zeynep with a notebook in his hand.

"Han?m, I write for the gazette that printed the paragraph about the fund," he said. "I have counted the stock, and I find it correct, but my editor will ask me why a woman keeps the credit table of a House."

"Because I keep it accurately, Efendi, and the Compact’s members have never found a fault in it," said Zeynep. "Write that, and write the figures beside it."

The reporter wrote for a long minute, and Zeynep waited without impatience.

The reporter looked at her and then at the shelves.

"I shall write it, and I shall also write who asked me to print the first paragraph," he said quietly.

Vlastos came forward last, when the crowd had thinned.

"I have been your rival for four years, Hassan Efendi, and I wished to see whether you would hide the books," he said. "You have not hidden them, and I shall join the guild’s purchasing association on Monday."

VIII

Constantinople, Galata — 20 March 1914

The commercial gazette printed the figures on its front page, and it printed them without a heading of apology.

Beneath them, in a small paragraph, the editor stated that the earlier article had been supplied by a person who had refused to give his name.

Agop Kalfayan read the page aloud in the Compact’s hall and set it down with evident pleasure.

"Five new applications came to my office this week, and three more came yesterday," he said. "The Compact stands at forty-one members, and the fund at three thousand five hundred liras."

"And the Berlin clerk?" asked Hac? Arif.

"He has left his café, and no one in Galata knows where he has gone," said Cevdet from the doorway. "I think his principals have found him a less visible post."

Ayaan listened and said nothing for a while.

He felt neither triumph nor relief, but a quiet understanding that the House had been tested and had not been found wanting.

Barrault had also sent a note, and Zeynep read it to the hall.

The Ottoman Bank has examined the fund and finds no reason to alter its line. We should be obliged if the Compact would send us its quarterly statement in the form used on 7 March.

"The bank wishes to receive in writing what the visitors saw with their eyes," she said. "That is a better compliment than any dinner."

"Elias, will you prepare a fuller statement for the next quarter?" he asked. "I would have every member receive the same page that the journalist received."

"It shall be ready by Friday," said Elias, and he wrote it in the margin of his ledger.

Zeynep watched him write, and she turned to Ayaan with a thoughtful look.

"The Berlin house meant to harm us, and it has instead taught every merchant in Galata to ask for our books," she said. "I would not have chosen the lesson, but I shall use it."

"Then let us use it well, and let us never give them cause to print another paragraph," said Ayaan.

IX

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 2 April 1914

A letter came from ?ükrü Bey of the Mabeyn, and Zeynep read it by the window in the last light of the day.

The gentleman who desires to see price schedules has read the figures published on 7 March, and he has observed that they agree with those supplied to the Palace in 1911. He asks nothing further.

"The Palace has compared the two," she said. "It found them the same."

"That is all that we ever wished it to find," said Ayaan.

Mehmed came running in from the garden with a handful of pebbles and laid them in a row upon the table.

"These are my sheds," he announced. "This one is in Konya, and this one is in Smyrna, and this one is mine."

"A fine network, and every shed is open to inspection," said Ayaan, and the boy beamed.

Later, when the house was quiet, Ayaan took the notebook from the shelf and wrote the date, and he thanked Allah for the clerks whose names the guild had read aloud.

A name is built by what a man shows, and it is kept by what remains when the showing is over.